Recently in sports economics Category

Here is a great little ESPN piece in which Hall of Fame quarterback, Steve Young, describes the NFL referees lockout persisting because of "inelastic demand" for the NFL product. The only explanation for this level of economic analysis is that Steve is a BYU alum (and has a law degree).

Jason and I were PhD students in the economics program at the University of Texas at Austin for five years, and Barry Kahn was a classmate of ours. However, during the last two years of the program while Jason and I were working on dissertations, Barry was spending most of his time on a business idea. Using the tools of game theory, microeconomics, and industrial organization, he was developing a company that would attempt to take back to the original ticket seller some of the profits that scalpers always get on the secondary ticket market. The result is Qcue (pronounced kyoo-kyoo) and the product is called dynamic pricing.

With Senator Orrin Hatch's (R-UT) editorial in this week's Sports Illustrated and congressional hearings ready to get underway tomorrow, I couldn't wait any longer to put up this picture. The figure below shows total NCAA bowl payout revenues adjusted for inflation (2008 dollars, CPI) and divided into revenues that went to BCS conference teams and non-BCS conference teams.

Jim Hamilton (UCSD) at Econbrowser.com has set up the second annual 2009 NCAA Bracket Econbrowser Tournament. You can find instructions on how to join the group and enter your bracket in Hamilton's post yesterday. It was a blast last year. I don't know of anywhere else where you can pit your NCAA tournament game-picking ability against such a large number of economists.

Two great games on Sunday have resulted in a Cardinals-Steelers Superbowl. Can this tell us anything about economics? I'm not sure, but lets compare the cities who boast the two best teams to the city who has claim on the worst team (ever).

Phoenix, the home of the Cardinals, has been one of the fastest growing cities in the US. Much of this growth is from high-tech industry, like semi-conductor manufacturers. And its proximity to the regulatory nightmare that is California has certainly helped that growth.

Pittsburgh, although in the "Rust Belt", has truly blossomed in the last few years. It has experienced decent population growth and increased the number of jobs in high paying industries like medical services.